


Witch Hunt

by marcceh



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Humor, Much silliness, Unreliable Narrator, Vampires, follows canon events to crack effect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2020-10-27 04:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20754074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcceh/pseuds/marcceh
Summary: John suspects the wrong Holmes of being a vampire.





	1. Chapter 1

Sherlock gets turned into a vampire over the weekend and takes it all in stride. He swipes John’s gun and then shoots himself in the hand, then watches the wound stitch up again.

“…cool.”

He swans into St. Barts and charms his way into getting a bunch of blood bags, and uses John’s Amazon Prime to order a giant freezer for their flat. He labels it EXPERIMENTS with a little doodle of eyeballs and dismembered toes, and John doesn’t bother ever opening it.

Monday comes around and Sherlock smells a murder so he and John pitter patter their way over, with Sherlock wearing shades and carrying a big 30 ounce plastic cup of what looks like red goop, which he drinks through a straw. It’s kinda weird, even for Sherlock.

“What are you drinking?” John asks.

“A milkshake,” Sherlock says. “It brings all the boys from the Yard. Oh, there’s Gavin. See, it works.”

“Um.”

Greg thinks it’s sketchy that Sherlock showed up to the crime scene before he did but eh, that’s Sherlock for you.


	2. Chapter 2

There'd been a…run-in, with a junkie, who Sherlock now realizes is a vampire. It'd happened en route to a routine update with Homeless Henry two blocks from Baker Street, and given the situation Sherlock has no reason to believe the attack was premediated.

“Aw, Sherlock,” Henry says with a long-suffering sigh. “I told you to close the door.”

“I did,” Sherlock snaps, affronted. He angrily staunches the neck wound with his scarf - the one that perfectly brought out his eyes. It was three seasons ago, and he’d have trouble finding the same one now. The blues this season were horrid and muted and would do no wonders for his complexion.

Of course, he didn’t realize at the time that his complexion would pale by two foundation shades, nor that the man he’d karate-chopped and left on the floor was no man at all, but a vampire.

“That’s Billy,” Henry says helpfully, of the unconscious man (vampire).

“Ugh,” Sherlock says, but not with much heat. He’d bore the brunt of withdrawals himself, once upon a time. He could sympathize.

“Billy’s not like us,” Henry says with another sigh, and a bit of a pitying look.

“Alright,” Sherlock says, eager to move on from the topic of Billy and onto what he had came for, which was any sighting of the yellow graffiti he’d been tracking.

It turns out there have not been, so Sherlock turns to leave.

“D’ye want his number?” Henry asks. Sherlock realizes he’s talking about Billy. 

He gives him a flabbergasted look. What  _ for? _

“Yknow, to talk about,” Henry gestures at his neck. Sherlock makes an  _ yeugh _ sound and stomps off.

Should’ve got that number. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this started as a random crack post I made on tumblr forever ago and every once in a while I think "huh. vampires" and consider expanding the little crack drabble. And then today, while wondering why exactly John hates Mycroft so much, I realized why not combine the two ideas together? voila


	3. Chapter 3

“There’s something...odd about Mycroft isn’t there?” John asks after Sherlock’s brother finally leaves the flat. Perhaps it was the jibe about his sex life, or the way he addresses John as if it were a strenuous task to exchange works with anyone whose iQ couldn’t rival a Holmes.

“Yes,” Sherlock deadpans, plucking away at the violin. “He’s an absolute monster.”

John starts at that -  _ monster. _ Well, that was a little harsh, wasn’t it?

Sure, he had a bit of a reptilian look and air to him, and John had only ever seen him in dark and slightly damp places, swinging that brolly of his with a villainesque glee, but monster?

John shakes his head. No, he couldn’t be much worse than Sherock, who for all his faults (and playing violin at all hours was the  _ least _ of them) was merely an eccentric - and brilliant - man. 

Perhaps Mycroft was just...standoffish. The way Sherlock is, getting either quiet or combative whenever meeting a new person. 

Mycroft had clearly staged and scripted their outlandish warehouse...meeting (abduction) and possibly now had no idea how to conduct himself in front of John. Maybe he was embarrassed! Likely not, John revises - Holmeses didn’t seem to understand embarrassment.

In either case, surely he would come around once John showed him there was no harm done.

A phone rings - Sherlock’s, not his.

“Lestrade. I’ve been summoned,” Sherlock says. Then he adds, “coming?”

“If you want me to,” John says. He wonders if this will be more interesting that the case Mycroft brought over.

“Of course,” Sherlock says, throwing on his coat. “I’d be lost without my blogger.”


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock, unwilling to deal with his pinging phone - John counts eight ignored texts from Mycroft, so far - hands it over to John unceremoniously. He’s got his hands full with the mysterious pink iPhone, apparently.

It’s nicer than John’s old phone, frankly, nice as it was that Harry had given him her old one when he couldn’t be bothered to get one. The internet browser on Sherlock’s was just so much easier to use.

But as he pulls up Google and spots Sherlock’s recent search history, it’s not what he expected. He’d expected some grisly murder stuff, or maybe elementary planetary facts, or some obscure chemical stories because that was Sherlock’s hobby.

Instead, there are things like _ how do you kill vampires _ and _ are supernatural creatures real _ and _ werewolf london _ and _ garlic allergy _ and _ supernatural hyponsis coercion. _

There’s a moment of confusion before it clicks - _ monster._

Sherlock hadn’t been facetious; he meant it as fact (it was so easy to confuse the two, with Sherlock). 

Mycroft must be some kind of _ literal monster_, a _ supernatural horror. _ Likely a vampire, but going by the searches, Sherlock wasn’t certain.

God, they weren’t really brothers, after all. 

At least, not by birth.

He must be in some way coercing Sherlock to do his bidding - _ that _ was why Sherlock had called him his nemesis!

And he must have forbade Sherlock from speaking about it. What silent suffering - well, it would be so no longer. John was determined to get to the bottom of this. He would help his friend rid himself of Mycroft’s hold, and they would vanquish the beast together.

How could he have been so blind to his friend’s cry, no _ cries_, for help? John shakes his head. 

Right. He would take this case Mycroft had given them, and use it as an opportunity to help suss out the evidence they needed to prove Mycroft the monster he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock, Googling: is vampire hypnosis real, and how can I use it to get Lestrade to give me the interesting sealed cold cases


	5. Chapter 5

They're only at Baker Street long enough to examine the basement unit, and then it's off again, to the lab this time, though not before Sherlock grabs some glasses and a hat. 

John thinks it’s weird, even for Sherlock, that he’s started taking to slathering his face with sunblock and wearing giant shades whenever he goes out. Perhaps he'd noticed paparazzi that John hadn't.

Sherlock just  _ tsks  _ at him with a very disappointed look when he asks, jokingly, whether he’s afraid of the sun now.

“Of course, John, you’re a doctor. Surely you must know what  _ skin cancer _ is?”

Skin cancer? he mouths to Molly as Sherlock sweeps across the lab in his patented swooshy way. Since when the hell was Sherlock even  _ remotely _ health conscious?

Molly just shrugs. “Must be for a case. Or maybe it’s hereditary!”

She leans in conspiratorially, looking both ways to check the coast is clear despite the fact that the lab is empty save for them and her new man, now that Sherlock’s gone, but John leans in anyway.

“I heard a rumor that Mycroft’s actually a ginger,” Molly whispers. Her boyfriend snorts.

“It’s why he always has an umbrella with him, not for the rain, but the sun. Maybe Sherlock’s found” - her voice lowers to a barely audible pitch here - _ “freckles.” _

“Freckles?” John’s voice is jarringly loud in the empty lab, in sharp contrast to Molly’s whisper. 

But the more he thinks about it, the more sense it makes.

“Well, he  _ is _ a bit vain.”


	6. Chapter 6

Mycroft texts once while in the lab, and then again by the time they’ve left.

_ Any developments? _

_ Mycroft Holmes _

“He’s texting me now,” John tells Sherlock, looking at his own phone with a mild sense of dread. Then he has an idea so brilliant he feels he must look incandescent.

.

John clears his throat, adjusts his tie. Was it just him, or was it hot in here? He smiles at the assistant (guard?) who let him in to see Mycroft.

He’d dressed up thinking it necessary to be let into the government office. Had to make it sound like he was on official business, after all, and look like someone who might be an acquaintance of Mycroft’s, in order to find further evidence of vampirism or other monsterly things. 

Perhaps he’d overdone it. 

It was just so _ warm- _ John blinks. Of course! Mycroft would run cold, wouldn’t he, as a member of the undead ranks. The high room temperature, so unusual for a government building, must help him mask that clammy corpse pallor. 

Mycroft looks at him from behind his desk and John finally takes a seat.

“John, how nice.” Mycroft’s expression says it’s anything but. He winces a bit, as if he had a toothache.

Toothache!

Must be his fangs, John thinks, giving him trouble for some reason or another.

He gulped.

Maybe Mycroft was hungry…

“I was hoping you wouldn’t be long. How can I help you?” Mycroft says, interrupting John’s thoughts.

John scrambles for an answer. Right, the case.

“Thank you. Um. Well. I was wanting to...your brother sent me to collect more facts about the” evil magic you’ve used to imprison his will “stolen plans. Missile plans.”

“Did he?”

Drat!! Could Mycroft read minds? That could account for the trick he’d pulled at the warehouse. 

“Yes,” John says. He puts on a nervous smile, waiting for Mycroft to call him out. Ha! He couldn’t, could he? If he did, well, that’d confirm it all. So John mentally steels his nerves, daring Mycroft to make a move.

“He's investigating now,” John says. His eyes drift to the left. Red curtains - red! The color of blood. Yet another damning piece of evidence. “He’s, er, investigating away.”

Mycroft gives him a sarcastic smile but doesn’t admit to mindreading.

John clears his throat.

“Um I just wondered what else you can tell me about the dead man…”

Mycroft sighs like some sort of tosser and opens his file, reading off details in a tone as if he wasn’t the one who positively begged for assistance on the case itself. Body found on the tracks, was it? Broad daylight. Ah. Mycroft couldn’t go out in broad daylight now, could he! No wonder he needed an able-bodied minion such as Sherlock to do his bidding. 

“How is he getting on?” Mycroft asks of Sherlock then.

“He -" John stutters over his words. The mind reading! “He’s, fine. Yes. Oh and-”

He wracks his brain, searching for something to reassure Mycroft, throw him off his scent.

“It’s going very well!” he blurts out. 

Mycroft raises an eyebrow.

“It’s um, you know. He’s completely focussed on it,” John gives him a big, confident (sort of) smile. 


	7. Chapter 7

Sherlock stops in the doorway, then goes back into the flat and upstairs, to nick John’s gun again. 

He might not have much blood in his body anymore, but he does have adrenaline running through his veins. The past few days have been case after case, and he’s never been so  _ glad _ to have declined Mycroft (even if he did eventually get to solving that one in the end. It was elementary! Did his brother  _ really _ think that was worth his time?). 

He does, however, feel just a teensy weensy bit guilty about, well, the vampire thing. He’d meant to tell someone, but it never really came up. And well, it wasn’t a problem was it? People had invited him in anyway, and maybe it was because he’d been well fed on blood bags, but he wasn’t having any problems acting like a civilized human being (well, any more problem than he’d always had, because sometimes the unspoken rules of civil society were tedious and to be avoided at all costs). 

There’d been that bit by the water, when they’d found the car with its blood-soaked seat. He’d been able to sniff out the fact that it’d been frozen, though he couldn’t quite tell how, and stumbled a bit trying to decide how to go about things.

And well, if being a vampire helped solve more cases, wouldn’t that be a welcome thing? Sherlock scowls, thinking of what Donovan would say. Oh, plus, she would henceforth write off any of his clear deductions with a wave of a hand -  _ he’s a vampire, he probably used ESP -  _ bah! This was skill, and this was logic, and she was just jealous because she was stupid. 

Also, there was the possibility that when he divulged this fact, people would mistake it for a joke. And then he would have to explain, because people are idiots. It was so much busywork - doesn’t seem worth it.

(Though, it would possibly be very worth it, to tell Mycroft, or at the very least inquire about vampires. Maybe Sherlock was being wrongheaded in thinking it was common knowledge they were a myth - he’d been wrong about Earth’s orbit around the sun, and that turned out to be third grade knowledge. He is skeptical he would have deleted something as fantastical as vampires, however.)

The clock strikes midnight as Sherlock strides into the school’s pool, gun at the ready, senses tingling. 

But instead of Moriarty - there’s John. Strapped with obscene amounts of C4.

Sherlock winces - a heroic moment  _ would _ be quite a proper way to reveal himself a vampire, though in all honesty he didn’t have super speed or strength much more than he did as a full human (those trashy novels had _lied_ to him), and he wasn’t sure he’d survive a blast of this magnitude.

Perhaps he could get the jump on Moriarty, if he bit him.

(He wasn’t sure it would actually work, and, well, he didn’t particularly want to. Not a fan of that particular brand of aftershave. And putting your teeth to someone’s neck was, logically, a poor way to fight.)

Fortunately, Sherlock is saved from having to make his dramatic, heroic reveal by a mysterious caller.

His confession of being a vampire would have to wait until another day.


	8. Chapter 8

Luckily, Sherlock is the proud owner of a set of blackout curtains, which were presently collecting dust in a box. 

He'd purchased them a year ago when he needed an impromptu dark room to develop some negatives belonging to a murder victim. They were, however, too hideous to put up on the windows of the living room, so he’d taken them down soon as he could. He needed them for his own room now, because the sun (what little of it there was in London), really did sting.

(Sherlock’s inclination is to believe it has more to do with UV than otherwise, because lights themselves don’t hurt him. So far, the experiments have been inconclusive; there are other wavelengths of light to experiment with, but the old beliefs about vampires being creatures of the dark, spiritually, Sherlock has a feeling that he will need to think out of the box - though still empirically.)

At least, he’d meant to put them up on his windows, he really did. He’d instead gotten sidetracked, working through the night - a thing he did prior to his bout of vampirism, and frequently - so he hardly realized it was time for the sun to come up, until it was practically shining in his face.

He made do, wrapping himself in the curtains like a toga, and sleeping on the bed like that.

Four hours later, he wakes with a yawn, shutting off his alarm and padding around the flat until he finds what he is looking for - his dusty laptop (John’s was typically closer, and thus got more use).

Naked save for his curtain, Sherlock sits and accepts the incoming call. There’d been a case in the country, and though he had found it mildly interesting, the open and broad daylight was a little hard to deal with. Dreary gray London days were alright, with the sunglasses and the hat (the sunscreen, unfortunately, was a failed bet), but the open country? Sherlock shuddered to think of it. (Could vampires get sunburn? He would have to try it. He  _ would _ have tried it, come to think of it, but the aversion to the sun seemed not just a practical, physical move, but one of psychological compulsion. He  _ really _ needed to try it now.)

John puts his face too close to the camera and Sherlock has to give him clear instruction as to where to point the laptop, but all in all it seems to work out. He’d given John some excuse, downgrading the case by a level, and refusing the leave the flat for anything lower than a six, which was a completely arbitrary ranking. John had nothing to do, in any case, and must be glad for the excursion. 

It’s going well enough, with Sherlock barking direction, until a  _ whomp-whomp-whomp _ sound of a helicopter drowns John out.

.

Sherlock ends up buck naked at the Buckingham Palace with nothing to preserve his dignity save the lucky curtain.

“Are you wearing any pants?” John asks.

“No,” Sherlock says. He doesn’t regret it, per se, seeing as he refused to dress out of spite. But. 

“Okay,” John says.

Damn. He wonders whether he can write it off as one of his lovable eccentricities. 

The equerry seems to accept it. Else he’s just being polite. Or British.

Damn Mycroft to hell! He’s in a sour mood. Nothing like his own brother to make him want to do the exact opposite of the thing he was already planning to do.

(Sherlock wonders if Mycroft has a sort of reverse-glamour, not that vampires actually had the ability, but surely Mycroft’s knack for putting people off was a  _ supernormal _ ability.)

“Mycroft, I don’t do anonymous clients. I’m used to mystery at one end of my cases. Both ends is too much work,” Sherlock says. The reality is, he could care less. He can’t remember half the names of the people who report cases to Lestrade, who then passes them on (has them co-opted by) Sherlock. But never let it be said he made things  _ easy _ for Mycroft. 

“This is a matter of national importance,” Mycroft snaps, stomping his foot on the trailing corner of Sherlock’s curtain. Damn the curtains! “Grow. Up.”

Sherlock grits his teeth (teeth, not fangs - and wasn’t it odd that he had such trouble bringing out the fangs? They’d pop, sometimes, if he was drinking blood and absent-minded, but it was truly a faulty mechanism).

“Get off my sheet!” he growls.

“Or what?” Mycroft retorts, the smug bastard.

“Or I’ll just walk away,” Sherlock threatens. He would. He would! 

“I’ll let you,” Mycroft says, calling his bluff. 

“Boys, please. Not here,” John adds unhelpfully.

“Who. Is. My. Client?!” Sherlock demands once again. The rage boils within him. This is not new, not a side effect of vampirism, despite the popular fiction of the Romantic sort, heightened emotions and all. Oh, no. This is all Mycroft.

Mycroft takes a breath, all long-suffering and matyr-like.

“Take a look at where you’re standing and make a deduction,” he says, and Sherlock would blush if he had the blood left to do so. Of course - how  _ obvious, _ how  _ elementary. _ He should’ve known, and not let Mycroft get the best of him, bickering himself back into a corner. 

“You are to be engaged by the highest in the land,” Mycroft adds, as if Sherlock were not already humiliated with this knowledge. “Now for God’s sake, put your clothes on!”


	9. Chapter 9

Mycroft condescendingly introduces The Woman, a dominatrix, with the name of Irene Adler.

What a stupid case. Sherlock advises Mycroft to pay the woman.

Then he reveals,

“She doesn’t want anything."

He’s intrigued.

The equerry goes on to explain she'd got in touch, informed them she had both the photos and absolutely no intention to use them to extort money or favor. Interesting choice of phrasing.

"Oh, a power play," Sherlock says. The dominatrix is living up to her name. "This is getting rather fun, isn’t it?"

John looks a bit testy, which Sherlock of course ignores. He asks for her location, makes a boastful claim, and then a dramatic exit.

.

Sherlock darts into 221B, leaving John at the bottom of the stairs. He needed a suitable outfit - he was never going to get caught in a curtain again. And certainly not in front of a worthy adversary such as this dominatrix. 

"What are you doing?" John asks, because John has a habit of asking the obvious. 

"Going into battle, John. I need the right armor," Sherlock says, coming out of the room in his favorite shirt. Does a bit of a twirl. John makes a face. No, he didn't want to look like he was trying too hard. Back to the wardrobe. 

In the end, he ends up wearing the clothes he already had om - ie, the outfit Mycroft had chosen. Awful. Mycroft must  _ never _ find out.

.

"So," John asks, "what’s the plan?"

"We know her address," Sherlock replies. Ah, John, again with your endearing, painfully obvious questions. 

"What, just ring her doorbell?"

"Exactly." Now he was catching on. 

.

Sherlock puts on an Oscar worthy impression of a pathetic punched priest and is quickly let in - he hears her before he sees her, but when he does -

"I’m so sorry. I’m …"

Speechless.

Partly rendered so by the sight - but partly by the  _ fangs. _

They drop and he snaps his mouth shut uncomfortably, with no recourse.

This has never happened. Ever!

"Oh, it’s always hard to remember an alias when you’ve had a fright, isn’t it?” She smiles, with her own pointed teeth, and then she tugs his collar out between her manicured nails.

“There! Now we’re  _ both _ defrocked.”

The Woman snaps it between her own pearly whites - Sherlock wants to wince. Does she  _ know? _ He’s having a painfully hard time keeping his mouth shut now - the fangs want to burst out.

They want to  _ bite _ .

Oh, do they want to bite. He wants to sink these newly realized canines into hot, warm-blooded flesh. To find an artery and  _ suck. _

He wants to shudder.

“Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” she continues. 

Ah. Game’s up, isn’t it? 

His having bested jerks him out of the red haze long enough to force the fangs back - he would have to look into this later - and he sniffs. 

“Miss Adler, I presume,” he returns.

She practically coos over his little cut on his cheek, from when John finally managed to land a punch.

“Look at those cheekbones. I could cut myself slapping that face. Would you like me to try?”

Of course, that’s when John comes in with the bowl (why? A bowl? John, really). He, sitting half dazed and newly defanged - she, standing over him stark naked and running a finger across his cheek.

“I’ve missed something, haven’t I?”

Sherlock can’t get a read on her - he checks John, and yes, it really  _ is _ just her, not completely broken after all - it is infuriating. 

Why?

_ How? _

(Was she a vampire?) 

No, no, there is red hot blood  _ thrumming _ through her veins. He can feel it. He can  _ smell _ it, hear it. She is human. Thoroughly. 

His mouth waters.

“D’you know the big problem with a disguise, Mr Holmes?” she asks, taking a seat on a plushy armchair and crossing her legs. Her red-lacquered soles only egg him on. He doesn’t show it outwardly, of course, but quirks and eyebrow at her.

“However hard you try, it’s always a self-portrait.”

He can’t help but retort. 

“You think I’m a vicar with a bleeding face?”

“No, I think you’re damaged, delusional and believe in a higher power. In your case, it’s yourself.”

He’s barely listening. This is going to be a problem.


	10. Chapter 10

“Did you know about the vampires?” Sherlock blurts out.

It stops Mycroft mid-tirade, he’d been going on about something ego something show off blah blah, things that clearly had nothing to do with Sherlock and all to do with Mycroft’s number one hobby being lecturing people to death. They were standing in the middle of an aircraft filled with corpses for goodness sake! 

Mycroft makes one of his little goldfishy expressions and looks around in bewilderment before pinning Sherlock with The Look, the one that always made him want to fidget, and feel once again like a five year old.

“Do you not understand the gravity of the situation?” Mycroft says, voice low. “The predicament you have put us all in?”

Sherlock huffs. It isn’t that he wants to make excuses, but the Woman makes his head  _ swim. _ Besides, now was as good a time as any, with him getting Mycroft alone in a setting that was certainly not bugged and tapped. 

After a long moment, Mycroft purses his lips and makes that funny face of his that looks as if he’s swallowed a lemon, as he does when he’s off-footed (read: embarrassed). 

“Is this about Dr. Watson?” he asks drily.

What? 

“What?” John couldn’t possibly know!

Mycroft rolls his eyes and mutters something about Sherlock’s flatmate accusing Mycroft of being a bloodsucker (and not in the government sense) and an undead abomination (nothing to do with his pasty complexion). Sherlock frowns and concludes that vampires are not common knowledge after all, and that there is the more pressing issue of dealing with the Woman who thought she had bested him.

She might have the plans and the code, but he still has the phone.


End file.
